Moscow Issues Its First Nuclear Challenge to TrumpRussia has reportedly deployed its new cruise missile in an apparent violation of the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in effect since 1988.

“Russia is using the Syrian civil war as a live-fire boot camp to train Iranian troops as the region’s dominant military force. And the U.S. seems unable — or still unwilling [under Trump] — to respond effectively.”

“Donald Trump seems poised to continue Obama’s mistakes when it comes to Russia, namely in his belief that they aren’t a threat to us, our interests abroad, or the sovereignty of other nations. So far, he has shown little to indicate that he would oppose Russia in any meaningful way in foreign conflicts. This includes his stance on NATO, which just last week he reiterated by calling the organization ‘obsolete.’”

“[Republicans], who are supposed to care about things like free speech and civil rights, shouldn’t need the spectacle of mass protests and police brutality [in Russia] to remind them that the Russian people are not sovereign in Putin’s empire. That [many Republicans] do need such a reminder should tell us more about the [sorry] state of [Republicans’ geo-]political [understanding] than it does about Russia’s.”

“Trump has already made the first mistake in negotiating with the Russians: telling them that there is anything to negotiate… [Instead, Trump has] to accept we’re in a war [w/ Putin] and that we have a lot to lose… [Trump needs] to learn to fight [Putin’s] ‘one war machine’ with a unified machine of our own… This will also strengthen and quicken decisionmaking on critical issues in the US — something we will also need to replicate within NATO. [Trump] must (re)accept the notion that hard power is the [only] guarantor of any international system: security is a precondition for anything (everything) else. It’s also important [for Trump] to acknowledge that a more isolated, more nationalist America helps Putin in his objectives even while it compromises our own. We need to accept that America was part of, and needs to be part of, a global system — and that this system is better, cheaper, and more powerful than any imagined alternatives… The truth is that fighting a new Cold War would be in America’s interest… Trump should set the unpredictable course and become the champion against the most toxic, ambitious regime of the modern world. Rebuilding American power — based on the values of liberal democracy — is the only escape from Putin’s corrosive vision of a world at permanent war. We need a new united front. But we must be the center of it.”